


All Sharp Edges

by TigerDragon



Series: The Girls In Question [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Break Up, Canon Compliant, F/F, Mental Breakdown, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/TigerDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you get a second chance to save the person you love. Sometimes you don't.</p><p>This isn't a story about salvation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Sharp Edges

**Author's Note:**

> The usual: we don't own BtVS. We're working around the shown canon of the show, so obviously all rights and such belong to Joss Whedon - who, we must admit, we're following more closely in the footsteps of than we might like to.
> 
> This picks up right after the end of "Consequences," bounces off the end of "Doppelgangerland" and lands firmly after the opening sequence of "Enemies." If you've seen the show, you know this is not going to be Happy Fun Times. Faith is working for the bad guys, having a mental breakdown, and generally not of the good. Like it says in the warnings, we're going to be touching on issues of sex and consent here - with what happens between Xander and Faith in "Consequences," we didn't feel like we could honestly avoid it.
> 
> If you want to skip this part, I don't blame you. It's going to hurt. But we'll make it worth the trip, promise.

For once Buffy’s mom had let her take the car without argument. Joyce had handed the keys over as soon as she’d explained that Faith was going through a hard time. Apparently the protective urge between her mother and the other Slayer went both ways.

Parking just below the door to Faith’s hotel room, Buffy checked all the sight lines before getting out. It was much more likely that someone was going to try to mug her than suck her blood in this part of town and the last thing she wanted was to get stake-happy.

She winced at the thought. No. Tonight was going to be nice, calm, something to remind Faith that she was still human. No potential stabbing. Not even any thoughts about stabbing. Just the two of them. Something nice.

Up the stairs, past the vending and ice machines, and at Faith’s door. There was no light on inside, and no music or television that Buffy could hear. She knocked anyway.

After five minutes and the third knock, she decided to give up. Apparently the other Slayer was out. As usual, Buffy had no way of knowing when she planned on returning.

If she planned on returning. There was another thought she didn’t want to be thinking.

The drive back home barely registered. After returning the keys to her mom and kissing her goodnight, she climbed the stairs to her room. She felt heavy, like all the responsibilities she had were finally becoming a literal weight on her shoulders.

The lights were off in her room, too. She could have sworn she’d left them on.

When she reached for the light, Faith’s voice came out of the dark. “Don’t.”

Buffy froze for a second, then relaxed, closing the door behind her. Shucking off her coat and shoes, she padded over to the bed. “Hi,” she said, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “I went to your place to invite you over. Guess you’re developing psychic powers or something.” Her eyes adjusted just enough to see Faith’s silhouette against her headboard. Buffy slid a hand along the comforter to find the other Slayer’s.

It was cold against her fingers, but she thought she caught a flash of ivory in the light. Faith, smiling. “Guess so. Still glad you talked me into coming back?”

Scooting up the bed to sit beside the other girl, Buffy frowned. “Of course I am! You’re...” She floundered for a moment, looking for a word to describe their relationship. “You’re important to me. I’m not going to give up on you.”

“Killing me with the eloquence, B. Next thing you know, it’s gonna be poems and flowers.” Faith leaned in close - almost close enough to touch - and put some bite into her voice. Not quite as wild as she’d been on the docks, but the kind that cut. “Dunno if I can handle that kind of affirmation.”

Resting her forehead in her palm, the blonde sighed. “You don’t want to talk? Ok, fine, we don’t have to talk.”

For a long moment, all Buffy could hear was two sets of breathing and the slight rustling of cloth as she shifted into a more comfortable position. She wasn’t going to give Faith the satisfaction of speaking first. She could wait the other girl out.

Minutes passed.

Okay, she couldn’t wait the other out. Damn her.

“Okay, I give. Why did you come see me if I stress you out?”

Faith didn’t say anything for a while. Long enough that Buffy was starting to wonder if she ever would, or if maybe she was going to have to strangle her to get words out which was, now that she thought about it, a lot less funny as a joke then it was last week. Why did she have to keep thinking of things that used to be funny and now just sounded....

“Not seeing you stressed me out worse,” Faith’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Even with all the fucked-up shit between us, even with you and Angel back together, even though you shopped me to the Council and I gave you up to Giles trying to save my ass... here’s me, crawling back.”

There went her hand again, inching over without her instructing it to. She couldn’t bring herself to stop it, though, and again it found Faith’s.

“God, it’s amazingly fucked-up. After Angelus I thought I’d seen all the fucked-up Sunnydale had to offer, but I hadn’t. I hate what this has done to us, Faith.”  She squeezed the other girl’s hand.

“Yeah.” After a few seconds, Faith squeezed back. “Yeah. Just... no preaching, okay?” She thought she could see just the hint of Faith’s eyes in the dark, two black pools half-shrouded in the darkness of the younger Slayer’s hair. “Not tonight.”

Buffy leaned in slowly, happy to leave all the heavy thoughts at the door. “Agreed,” she whispered, lips inches from Faith’s. “No preaching, no introspection, nada.”

Compared to her hands, Faith’s mouth was burning.

\----------------------------------

“We really,” Buffy whispered into Faith’s mouth, “shouldn’t be doing this here.”

Heavy machinery. Underground room. School overhead. Questionably sound lock on the door. Friends upstairs. Definitely a bad idea.

“Come on, B,” Faith breathed in her ear, “not like it’s gonna take you long. Besides, you can’t tell me evil vampire Willow didn’t get your motor running. I hear there was leather and corsets involved.”

A shiver ran up and down Buffy’s spine, her blood catching fire as she fisted her hands in Faith’s jacket. “A leather corset, actually. You really missed a show,” she started to tease. She was unsuccessful at continuing to do so, mainly because Faith had shoved her up against a cabinet and was working on her belt.

“I bet. Willow was in maximum ramble mode.” Faith’s fingers popped her waistband, then worked their way inside with the efficiency of a professional bank-robber. Or girl-ravisher. Or whatever. “I may have missed a bit, but did she really feel herself up? Maybe we should invite her for a slumber party, B.”

It almost sounded sexy in a fantasy-meant-to-stay-unfulfilled kind of way, but then she remembered. A hot spike of anger broke through her arousal. “You seem to be digging the slumber parties lately,” she began, voice too sweet. “Have a good time with Xander?”

She felt Faith’s shoulders tense, felt the bite of nails on her thigh, heard the hitch in Faith’s breath from a few inches away. “Which time, B? ‘Cause I’m thinkin’ he had a pretty good time both ways, no matter what he has to say about it.” There was hot rage in Faith’s voice, mingling with the other kinds of heat, and the weight of Faith’s body up against hers was suddenly as much a trap as a pleasure. “You wanna go up and ask him, B? Bet he’d like nothin’ better than to come down here and explain it to us.”

Locking her feet to the floor, the blond braced herself to retain some leverage. Rage of her own burning through her chest, the glare that Buffy gave the other Slayer would have injured a mere mortal. “Right, because it’s always so much fun to re-live your near death experiences.”

“Kill Xander? You shitting me?” Faith grinned, all sharp teeth and dark lips, and her eyes gleamed with a wild fire that flashed and danced under her skin. “Just a little breath play, B. He’s more fun alive, if you know what I’m sayin’. Knows how to party, not like old Long in the Tooth up at the mansion of broodsville.”

The leverage paid off. A leg twined around Faith’s ankle, Buffy shoved the other Slayer hard on the opposite shoulder, twisting her face down onto the floor. In an instant she had the brunette pinned down, arms twisted behind her back, legs under Buffy’s.

“If you were in the mood for a fight, why didn’t you just say so?”

“Gotta get you ready, B.” Faith laughed, wild and loud, and then jack-knifed her body violently in a  bid to throw off the other Slayer. It only half-worked - she got her hands loose, but their legs wound up twisted together so thoroughly neither of them made if off the floor. She grabbed Buffy by the hair, kissed her hard, then bit her lip until it bled. “Always more fun if you’re in the mood.”

A hefty left hook dislodged her, and then Buffy was up and halfway to the door. “I’m not going to play this game, Faith.” Hurt and weariness were heavy in her voice. “Go find a demon if you want to punch something.”

“Jesus, B, I’m just playing around.” Faith rolled up onto her feet, wiping the blood from the lip Buffy’d split and tasting the other girl’s blood in her mouth. “You’re the one who freaked about Rosenberg, remember? I just played along, B, that’s all. Don’t blow me off.” Buffy didn’t turn around, and Faith’s voice banged off the walls after her. “Don’t fucking blow me off, B!”

Without turning around, Buffy stopped, her head turned slightly, as if she was willing to listen to but not look at the other Slayer.

“You’ve always been rough around the edges, Faith.” Her voice was tightly controlled, like she was worried she’d say something she’d regret later. “I liked that about you. But now you’ve turned that up to eleven and you cut no matter how I hold you.”

“Then show me how to stop, B.” That sweet, sexy alto voice dripped desperation, and the pain and anger under it were thick enough to choke on. “Take me up there and hold my hand and I do the big I’m sorry for Xander, keep my mouth shut about Willow, not punch Wes in the face. All you gotta do is take me up there, B. I can be your girl, if you just let me. I don’t cut you, you don’t cut me … what could be fucking fairer?”

Buffy turned. Now she could see Faith, her normally-shuttered face open just a little bit. Fire and hunger and pain burned through, and it scared her. Scared her like the blood on Faith’s hands in the alley, that hadn’t wanted to come out no matter how hard she scrubbed. Scared her like Angel - something she might fall into and never get out again.  “Faith,” she started, voice quiet, tinged with a hint of her own desperation, “you need help. Not girlfriend-type help. Big help. You apologizing to Xander just because I want you to... that’s not going to fix anything. Us making a show of being together’s not going to fix anything.” She put a hand to her forehead, rubbing the temples. “I don’t know how to fix it. I just... it’s not that simple, okay?”

“Yeah.” Faith’s jaw set, face back in lock-down mode, and then she threw a smile up at Buffy that was all sharp corners. “Yeah, sure. Five by five. We gonna stand here all day, you gonna go, or we gonna do the nasty?”

The question hung in space like an object at the apex of its flight about to come down.  
  
Buffy was so tired it hurt to breathe.

“I’ll see you later, Faith.”

_________________________

“I still say we shoulda staked him, B. A demon’s...”

“A demon. Yeah. You said.” Buffy threw a look over her shoulder at Faith, biting down on the frustration that was dancing under her skin. “It’s not that simple, Faith. Some demons are all about the end of the world, and some just want to get by. Save it for one that matters.”

Faith shrugged, shoving her hands in the pocket of the black leather jacket, and imitated a particularly solid, broody shadow.

They walked on, Buffy desperately hoping for some apocalyptic-class demons to fight, or at the very least some vamps. A vamp-pocalypse. _Something_ -pocalypse. Anything.

“So you and Angel do movies now,” Faith said into the dark, like it was no big deal. “Theatre movies with people. I didn’t know you did movies with people, B.”

A little stab of guilt went through the blonde. “I don’t do it often.” Another awkward pause. “What kinds of movies do you like? My money’s on things that go boom.” She shot a tentative half-smile at the other Slayer, hoping to...something.

“Boom is good. Gotta say, I like boom. Something to get the adrenaline going.” Faith stepped in, blocked Buffy in against a crypt, and cracked what might have passed for a smile in a lot dimmer light. “Bet your adrenaline’s going just fine, seeing on-screen romping with talk, dark and sexy. Hate to let you finish the evening all wound up. Besides,” dark lips brushed the pale skin of Buffy’s throat, “I did say I’d keep you warm for him.”

About a dozen conflicting emotions all sat up straight in Buffy’s head, waving their hand to be picked. Her metaphorical teacher, no doubt a stand-in for her superego (she liked a lot of what Freud had to say, though in her experience a stake was _never_ just a stake) was floundering, unable to make a decision.

About thirty seconds of Faith’s lips on her skin gave her id the leeway to run to the front like a quarterback and start calling the shots. When the other Slayer let her hands start roaming all over Buffy’s hips, she moaned and returned the favor.

“I think they should arrest you just for wearing that outfit,” she breathed, fingers sliding over tight jeans. “You are sinfully sexy.”

“Gotta say, B, I’m loving the black on black. Think it suits me.” Faith’s laughter hummed up against Buffy’s throat, and her hands didn’t mess around with politely copping a feel. No, they went right for the buttons and the fasteners, like Buffy was a meal and Faith was starving. It was like this more and more, since the last night on the docks - like Faith couldn’t get enough of her, no matter where or when or how long or how hard she had Buffy.

Grabbing Faith’s hands, Buffy tried to still them, kissing the other girl as slowly as she could. “It’s been a while since we’ve taken it slow,” she finally panted. “Let’s go back to my place. We can take our time.”

Faith’s growl in her ear would have made tiger jump. “I don’t wanna wait, B. I wanna hear you scream my name.” Those burning lips were at her throat, nipping and sucking, and she was so aware of the throb of her pulse it scared her.

Her hands were between them, not shoving the other girl away but not letting her close, either. “Faith, no. I don’t want to do it this way, not tonight.” She was proud of herself that her fighting instincts were still under control. She wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“Jesus, B, when did you get frigid again?” Faith took a step back, throwing her hands wide, and her eyes were burning dark against the paleness of her face. “You scared your boyfriend’s gonna hear us, that it? Or you just wanna take it slow, the way he’d take it. That it?”

Buffy stared at Faith in shock for a long five seconds before heading away at a brisk pace. She worked her buttons and zippers closed again as she went.

At ten yards from Faith, she whirled around again, fury vibrating through her, tears welling up in her eyes and voice.

“I don’t want things the exact same way you want, so you attack me? I won’t let you do whatever you want to me, so something’s wrong with me?” The tears were moving down her face now, her hands clenching and unclenching in the air. “I can’t do this any more if you’re going to treat me like this. I just can’t.”

“‘This.’ You’re fucking breaking up with me and you still can’t call it anything but ‘this.’” Faith’s eyes flashed, and her voice dropped into a growl even deeper than the one she’d breathed against Buffy’s ear. “You don’t wanna play who treats who how with me, B.”

The blond Slayer’s face hardened into a mask. “Fine,” she said, voice flat. “I’m going home.”

“Great. You wanna run home, you fucking do that,” Faith snapped out. “I’m just gonna go slink off and be grateful the great and good Buffy Summers of Sunnydale ever let me lay a hand on you. That make you happy, B?”

Three weeks ago, she would have flinched. Things had been better then.

“I haven’t been happy in a while, Faith.” She turned to go, trying not to feel the other girl’s eyes burning a hole in her back.

When she looked back, ten feet later or so, Faith had vanished into the dark.


End file.
